The New iPhone

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I'm in the market for a new phone. With the release of the new iPhone G4 just announced, I've definitely got my eye on the iPhone. I'm one of the last of my friends to convert (I'm currently a blackberry user at present).

One of the reasons I'm looking to make the switch is that I'm hoping to use the iPhone for it's map features to help us get around Japan. Any travel iPhone apps worth purchasing/looking into?image/wishopeace

The Lonely Planet apps are great. We used my boyfriend's to get us all around Paris. There's also a great subway app that makes getting from stop to stop super easy. Not sure if it works on Japan's subway's as well, but I'm sure it must. Let me ask him what it was called and then get back to you!

hooray, travel!ditto on lonely planet — great app. skype (or icall). fxbudget was great for tracking expenses, and there's a terrific, free currency exchange app, for keeping up with the markets. I <3 travel's packing tool was really useful, too.

... and it seems I heard recently about a speech-based translation app, specifically for japanese.

sorry for posing war and peace here, but the b-friend and I just returned from vacation in western europe. we discovered that the 50M international data-roaming plan was far more than sufficient if we called up maps prior to leaving wi-fi range. the gps tracking function still works in airplane mode, so g-maps was quite usable even without data transmission. the compact size prevents wandering the streets with an open map ... and added bonus: we were able to help another tourist couple, unable to find their meeting-point!

Nick and I used the Rick Steves iphone app in Paris! We also downloaded a free Paris map that we used too. Made us a little less obvious tourists, looking just at an iphone rather than folding out a big map!

if I may throw a curveball, i HIGHLY recommend checking out the Google Nexus 1 phone (T-mobile provider). My boyfriend has it; it's droid based, and not locked, meaning he can use any app that exists (whereas Apple blocks many, many apps). Also, it has a flash on the camera, iphones do not. I have a whole list of reasons why I like it more than the iPhone... Honestly, it's almost the same thing, but google really figured out the small, bad things about the iPhones and made the Nexus One that much better!